


What is Worse

by dreamkist



Category: The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire
Genre: Dark, Death, F/M, Loss, Missing Scene, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-14 04:25:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16032941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamkist/pseuds/dreamkist
Summary: A part of her seemed to die along with him. Or maybe it only shrank and hid itself away.





	What is Worse

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DianaSolaris](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaSolaris/gifts).



Failure. It should have been a familiar feeling. Her life had been a series of failed acts, and that night she had failed in the most lackluster way yet. The chance was there, right in front of her, and she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t pay the price despite all her talk about revolution requiring hard decisions.

She shakily slipped into the darkness and made her way home. Her mind was both sharp and slow. Little sounds drew her attention through the haze she was in. A door closed as she hurried down an alley and she spun in the direction of the sound. No one was following her. She continued on.

The stairs up to the room were dark and she felt her way up. Each step a precarious bit of blind hope. As she got closer to the door she saw it was slightly ajar and the glow of a fire shone from the crack. Fiyero was supposed to be at the club. He was supposed to be safe. Maybe he had come here anyway, that would be just like him.

Part of her was glad he hadn’t listened to her warnings as she neared the door. She could tell him what had happened, and he could bask in having been right. She couldn’t make the hard choice. Those girls in the way had been too real for her after all.

The stove was lit but the room was only slightly warmer than outside. He had the skylight open for some reason. Then the smell of something _wrong_ in the air hit her. She heard the burbling sound of something trying to breathe.

No.

With growing horror her eyes adjusted and saw the dark shape on the floor.

Fiyero. Bloodied and broken on the floor. He was still alive as the wet sounds of his labored breath attested. Once again she froze. She didn’t know what to do. She almost turned to flee, run from that room and never look back, but she stayed in place. It was Fiyero, and she would face the pain.

She knelt beside him, in his blood, and her hands danced over him, unsure where to land. They settled on his hand. His one eye looked at her and he tried to speak again. The light flickered over the blood. Stupid, good man who she loved.

“Why?” she wailed. “Why did you come here, you fool?” It hurt to look at him.

Magic. She could use magic. But it wouldn’t work. The damage was too great. All she could do was close tiny cuts. She didn’t know any spell powerful enough.

She wasn’t powerful enough.

She lifted his head, cradled it on her lap. His blood was on her hands.

His voice, broken and ragged, tried to say something. “Please,” he managed to say from between cracked lips. “You’re good.”

“No,” she shook. If she were good this wouldn’t have happened. He would have been anywhere else, he wouldn't have had an affair with her, they would have only been old school acquaintances, and she would never have caused this to happen. As she stroked at the only part of his hair that wasn’t bloodied, her mind quickly traced a line back to everything wrong that had occurred in her life; it led straight back to her birth.

“Remember,” he whispered. “Elphie,” he exhaled one last time then was finally, mercifully, still.

She wanted to yell and rage and demand, but she knew it would be pointless. What in the world cared enough to listen?

Thought fled to some far off place. So, she sat there with him. A part of her seemed to die along with him. Or maybe it only shrank and hid itself away.

An unknown amount of time passed. She moved again, more instinct than anything else, and eased Fiyero’s head to the floor. A last look and she was gone. Without conscious thought, her feet seemed, of their own accord, to carry her down the stairs, out into the cold night, and through the city.


End file.
